Read "His Dream" by W.B. Yeats online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I swayed upon the gaudy stern / The butt end of a steering oar, / And everywhere that I could turn / Men ran upon the shore.
And though I would have hushed the crowd / There was no mother's son but said, / "What is the figure in a shroud / Upon a gaudy bed?"
And fishes bubbling to the brim / Cried out upon that thing beneath, / It had such dignity of limb, / By the sweet name of Death.
Though I'd my finger on my lip, / What could I but take up the song? / And fish and crowd and gaudy ship / Cried out the whole night long,
Crying amid the glittering sea, / Naming it with ecstatic breath, / Because it had such dignity / By the sweet name of Death.